Microsoft released the public beta version of Mango (Windows Phone 7.1) Developer Tools on 24th May, 2011. In this post, I am going to share some of the new features that have been released with the Windows Phone 7.1 (Mango) Public Beta. You might already know about those from various resources, but I wanted to share some of them in my blog.
If you have not yet downloaded the developer tools, download Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 Beta. Read the complete post to know more about the new features.
Windows Phone 7.1 (Mango) Features
- Your application now accesses the compass and gyroscope sensors in addition to the accelerometer
- When your application returns to a normal position, it resumes quickly without displaying "Resuming..." message
- You can now schedule tasks for the future
- Scheduled tasks will run even if the application is not running
- You can now play a background Audio when you are working with another application
- You can now download any file in the background process
- Applications can now communicate using TCP and UDP protocols
- Two way communications using sockets are now supported
- User can now detect the mobile operator and other network information
- Your application can have more than one tile pinned to the start screen
- You can now combine both Silverlight and XNA framework in a single application or game
- Enhanced Windows Phone Emulator has been included to simulate sensor data
- You can now write code to access the Camera of your Phone devices
- VB support has been added for both Silverlight and XNA frameworks
- Multi targeting enables you to create WP7.0 or WP7.1 projects
- Easy upgradation to WP7.1 from WP7.0 is available to take the new advantages
- Application profiling is now supported and using that, you can now measure your system resources
- Push notifications are now more robust and support two sided application
- Internet Explorer 9 has been included and you can take the benefit of HTML5 there
- Programmatic access to the cookie collection of browser has been added using extension methods
- Local Database support has been added now which resides in the Isolated Storage
- Your application can use the LINQ to SQL operations
- LINQ queries are available to access OData resources and perform secure client authentication
- You can now check the status of your device and determine whether it is running on battery or external power
- You can now determine the manufacturer information of your device too
- You can now choose address, invite for game, save ringtone and get directions using Bing maps
- Touch Input, image decoding are now processed on background threads
- Users will be able to launch the application directly from Bing search results
- Using the new Add Service Reference dialog, you can now generate the client proxy
- Read only access to the user's contacts and calendar data has been added
- Encrypted credential store enables you to access various cryptography APIs
- System tray now supports opacity, colours and a progress indicator
- Support for 16 additional cultures are now added including East Asian languages
